The Gopher Quest (or how to begin planting flowers)

January 29, 2012

This quest isn’t terribly difficult, and I think you should at least give solving the puzzles a go before you read the whole guide. I tried to write this walkthrough with my “process” included, so if you start reading and get unstuck, you can go back to the game to finish on your own. If you’re totally frustrated and just want to grow flowers already, the end of this post has a step-by-step guide.

So, assuming you took a stab at this and are back here because you’re still stuck, here’s the gist.

After the latest update (version 0.20 beta), perhaps you noticed the holes in some of the scenes, like this one:

See the unusual hole in front of Tokori's shop?

It looks a bit like a burrow, right? Or a volcano/geyser spout. If you’re like me, you plopped Furdiburb right on top of it … and discovered that this accomplished nothing (though Furdi did sit in one place, which I suppose could be kind of nice since he’s always getting in my way).

There are similar holes in front of the JunkBot’s workshop and at the new scene, Red and Jed’s farm. There is also a new plant in front of the JunkyBot’s workshop. I tried watering the plant, which caused it to get taller … and do nothing else.

I went to Red and Jed’s farm and talked to both of them. They explain how the process for growing flowers works, and there’s a bit of chit-chat thrown in, which includes some subtle clues for later. I picked up the plumeria seed in Jed’s barn (because I always pick up everything free) and bought two other cheap ones, just to experiment.

So I pulled my plumeria seed out and dropped it in the ground … and a gopher came out and ate it. Red wasn’t very helpful, but after trying out a few more plumeria seeds and losing them all, it became pretty clear that I needed to stop the gopher before I could plant flowers.

I’d noticed on my way to the farm that there were some mushroom patches in front of the gypsy hut, like the ones in Boomy Woods. I watered them and … presto! Purple ‘shrooms.

Furdiburb is rocking the pink hairbow today.

Even though my momma taught me never to eat weird mushrooms, I fed them to Furdiburb and he shrank.

(Cue lightbulb moment…) Oh! Now he can fit in the holes!

I headed to the gopher burrow at the farm, dropped tiny Furdiburb down the hole, and found Larry the gopher.

Talking to Larry makes it clear that he isn’t going to stop stealing seeds any time soon, which is rather annoying. There’s nothing to do down here other than be annoyed, but pressing on the arrow will bring you back to the surface (and return Furdiburb to his normal size).

Larry mentioned his parents in our conversation, so I headed over to Boomy Woods, shrank Furdi, and tossed him into the hole there to find this:

See the recipe on the wall? I knew I was grabbing all those seeds for a reason ...

Larry’s parents are concerned about their rebel son. They, like Red the farmer, mention taro root. And (cue another lightbulb) there’s that mysterious new plant in front of the robot’s workshop:

Before...

... and after watering!

I shrank and jumped in the hole to find:

Hey ... that looks familiar ...

Turns out the thing I’ve been calling “sleepy-time creature” is a taro root. I have a few in my inventory thanks to the recipe, but I collected this one and returned to the surface. Since I already knew that this object makes Furdi fall asleep, it wasn’t too hard to guess that I needed to go back to Larry’s burrow and give him the taro root.

Sure enough, it knocked the rebel gopher right out, and I was able to return to the surface and plant my seeds — which I’ll explain in another post. :)

In a nutshell:

1) Grow two purple mushrooms.

2) Go to JunkyBot’s workshop scene and water the taro plant so that it grows.

3) Shrink Furdiburb, jump into the burrow in front of JunkyBot’s workshop, and collect the taro root.